The microtubules of skeletal muscle fibers are arranged into an orthogonal grid, but how this network is formed is unknown. Oddoux et al. reveal that the network is built by dynamic microtubules nucleated from Golgi elements. This biosights episode presents the paper by Oddoux et al. from the October 28, 2013, issue of The Journal of Cell Biology and includes an interview with senior author Evelyn Ralston (NIH, Bethesda, MD). Produced by Caitlin Sedwick and Ben Short. See the associated...

Vincent Racaniello speaks with Professor Harald zur Hausen, recipient of the 2013 Society for General Microbiology Prize Medal for "work that has had a far-reaching impact beyond microbiology."
Professor zur Hausen talks about the beginnings of his work on the human papilloma virus (HPV) starting in 1972 with a group he setup to look at the "isolation and characterization of the viruses in genital warts."
This group would lead to the discovery of HPV 16 and 18 (the leading cause of...

In addition to specialized actin structures such as lamellipodia and stress fibers, cells are thought to contain a contractile actomyosin matrix that maintains cell shape. Luo et al. describe the organization and dynamics of an actomyosin network that may fulfill this function. This network is formed by actin nodes that contain the formin DAAM1 and the crosslinker filamin A, and that are connected to each other by myosin II. This biosights episode presents the paper by Luo et al. from the...